Freaky Tales review: Pulp pleasure for Grindhouse lovers
It’s a busy year for the internet’s daddy Pedro Pascal. Currently wowing audiences in the second season of The Last Of Us, he’s soon to try and revive the Marvel Cinematic Universe as part of the new Fantastic Four film. In between all these big budget efforts, however, is the flawed but charming cult actioner Freaky Tales.
The directors of Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, the movie is an anthology of four interconnected tales that take place during one night in Oakland in 1987. As is common in this sort of film, there are chapters that are more compelling than others. Mercifully, the film opens and closes with the most compelling stories, feeling like a prize for those who stuck out the so-so middle parts.
The striking opening salvo is an electric story of two punks (Ji-young Yoo and Jack Champion) who join a movement to stop attacks on their group from local nazis. Filled with a righteous, youthful rage and a sprinkling of romance, there’s a lot to like it as you’re given hints of cult classic The Warriors.
The middle parts, about budding rap duo (Normani and Dominique Thorne) struggling to make it big in the face of misogyny; and Pascal’s remorseful criminal trying to fight his way out of his old life; don’t go anywhere as exciting, and while diverting in their own way (Pascal can put emotion into the leanest of roles) they don’t have the moments you’ll be talking about leaving the cinema.
Those belong to the punks and Jay Ellis as real-life basketball player Sleepy Floyd, who brings all the threads together as he uses supernatural powers to get revenge on home invaders. It’s the wackiest of the quartet and all the more entertaining for it.
Freaky Tales sporadically lives up to its name, coming in at a 100-minute running time that means your patience won’t be tested too greatly. It won’t be Pascal’s most memorable 2025 release, but is sure to be a pulp pleasure for lovers of Grindhouse madness.
Freaky Tales is in cinemas from 18th April.